Coturnix breast meat quality/size question

[bigjohn]

I am understanding that the jumbo quail are a few ounces larger than the Texas A&M birds (I know that there are some larger A&M's; I just have not seem them yet). It seems everyone has A&M birds in the 10 oz range.

My question: Is the wider breasts of the A&M's preferable to the larger Jumbo birds that don't have the wide breast and white meat? Or do the Jumbo's have large/wide breast meat that is comparable to the A&M's?

My A&M's are very meaty and weigh around 10 ounces, but I have yet to raise any jumbo birds to have a comparison.

From the many posts, it seems that the taste is the same, but no one has mentioned the 'quality' of breast meat between the jumbo's and the A&M's.

If the 'smaller wide breasted' birds are meatier than the larger jumbo birds, then raising a smaller bird using less feed would not be a bad idea.
Breeding for larger Texas A&M birds would be the most practical if jumbos don't currently compare to these birds.

Hope this makes sense ...........

 

[monarc23]

All I'm able to tell you from my experience is Pharoah coturnix deffinatly do not have near as much meat as the jumbos do. Just handling a jumbo over a pharoah (before culling and dressing) you can feel the major difference.

A & Ms are to be the same or bigger than jumbos. The problem is breeders didn't selectively breed their A & Ms after recieving them, leaving them to get smaller over breeding selection. Which is pitiful IMO. NOt all breeders have the room for selective breeding though, so most just throw all their A & Ms together. So they get smaller over time. Almost all my A & Ms are pharoah size...however they have massive meaty bodies (completley different from the pharoahs)....so they ARE genetically meatier than normal even when not the correct size. I should have size fixed though not long after my birds start up. Until then, no eating A & Ms for me. OH and im getting more A & Ms from teh same breeder so im hoping i get some more giant A & MS (13+ oz) like my one hen who im probably going ot have to AI to get her eggs fertile because i dont think my roo can cover her

 

[bigjohn]

So continuing with the same train of thought, do you think that the Jumbos in other colors have the same 'meaty' breasts as the A&M's? Even though they are large, do they compare meat wise to the A&M's. Putting it another way, if you had two birds side by side and they weighed 14 oz each, one an A&M and the other a Jumbo (brown, tux, etc), would the A&M be a bigger breasted bird and the Jumbo just a BIG bird?

 

[bkvail]

Interesting thought on the A&M getting smaller.....

I raise rabbits for show - and a lot of people use inbreeding/linebreeding to reduce the size of certain breeds. It works well. I wonder if this is happening with the A&M too - getting inbred? In that case, bringing in blood from a different breeder (maybe keep the roo's from one line and hen's from a different line and try not to do any inbreeding if possible). Just a thought......

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
its a good thought for sure

Could be possible easily. It's very easy to keep A & Ms from going inbred if you (the breeder) dont mind breeding in a new color. If you breed in jumbo brown into an A & M, then breed that brown back to the A & M, i'd htink you'd probably getsome % of A & Ms to work with again....

Which would refresh the blood.

as for the question about a& M to jumbo compairsion, i'd say that A & Ms are deffinatly meatier over all (least iMO).

 

[bkvail]

ah ha! Interesting - I didn't know that the A&M was a recessive color trait - I am really into color genetics in rabbits, so might be interesting to mess with them in quail as well. It doesn't matter what color I raise since they aren't for show, LOL. I'd rather have the genetic diversity and not raise tiny things. I have some coturnix chicks in my brooder that look like they MIGHT be A&M - supposedly I only got jumbo brown, golden, and tuxedo - but there are a couple that are mostly yellow with only small amounts of black - maybe those came from the jumbo brown colored parents possibly? I'll see as they grow - maybe they are just golden with very little black.......

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
yeppers A & M (and english white) is recessive.

Well to produce Tuxedo you have to have an A & M and Tibetan to produce it. So it's very likely that a brown or a golden mated with a tuxedo (and that the brown or the golden carried A & M) to produce a small percentage of A & Ms. More than likely taht is what you have. If they are mostly yellow with brown spots on the head and or back that'd be what they are!

I've produced tuxedos by breeding a tuxedo roo to a jumbo brown hen (the jumbo brown hens mother was an A & M) so the tibetan of the tuxedo crossed with the genetics behind the brown to make more tuxedos. I have yet to get an A & M but i could see it being possible if bred enough!

If you omit the tibetan gene it would probably be easier to get A & M by waht the birds carry. So maybe a brown bred to abrown and both carried A & M and thrw up the recessive!?


BTW...i went from show rabbits working on genetics, to coturnix quail

 

[bkvail]

my head is spinning, but I could probably figure it out if I read that enough, LOL! The tibetan is what color? (edit: just looked at your site and looks like they are chocolate?) How are the colors in order of dominance? The brown being the most dominant, but can carry the recessives for all the other colors?

The dark chicks with dark feet are the tuxedo, right?

What breed rabbits did you raise for show? I have had Mini Lops for about 11 years. www.vailslops.com

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
Similar holland lops

(when i first startedin holland lops I didnt see the differnce in hollands and minis in pictures until i saw my first minis i was like

HUUUGE !LOL!!!!! They are like the flemish giants of the lops! LOL! I really like them but boy are they expensive, atleast here in PA, tho i thkn that's because they arent' as common. I also bred mini rexs for a bit, and helped my friend with lionheads. I actually recognize your rabbitry!

AWH I WANT ABYSS!!! (and all three sr bucks haha)!

 

[bkvail]

Quote:
I actually had to put Abyss down a couple weeks ago due to a broken back

I put him in my big cage and he ''binkied'' too hard

You think the Mini Lops are big - the French Lops are the Flemish sized ones! They are HUUUGE! ML's are about 6 lbs. French are easily twice that! I have a friend who has about 100 Holland Lops

I only keep what you see on my site - less than 20 usually.